From 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' - Mohsin Hamid:

..we have acquired a certain familiarity with the recent history of our surroundings, and that – in my humble opinion – allows us  to put the present into much better perspective.


I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by it determination to look back.

As a society you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire world was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums … Such an America had to be stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own.

A common strand appeared to unit these conflicts and that was the advancement of a small coterie’s concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage.

..no other country inflicts death so readily upon inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America.